Benson and the Bensonians

A continuously surprising full length biography of the astonishing founder of the Benson Company who in the early twentieth century 'went up and down the land that the people might meet Shakespeare played by a company dedicated to his service'. This is the story of the patrician Adonis, son of a country squire, who on the strength of playing Agamemnon in Balliol Hall, decided to clean up the English stage with Shakespeare and athletics. A book of amazing range of interest, almost every page of which throws light on the beginnings of those whose names became illustrations in the twentieth century theatre.